


Mount Rainier

by berlynn_wohl



Series: Dreams and Machines [1]
Category: Silent Running (1972), U2
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Crossover, Exhibitionism, First Time, Frottage, Hand Jobs, M/M, Masturbation, Nature, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-10
Updated: 2009-04-10
Packaged: 2017-10-26 09:42:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,417
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/berlynn_wohl/pseuds/berlynn_wohl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This fic was inspired by the film <i>Silent Running</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mount Rainier

**1**

Everyone had a nickname. A handle. It was a rite of passage. Some had had their nickname since childhood; some didn't earn them until graduation. But no one made it past Ensign without one.

Tell was the guy who trotted into the docking bay to greet the new arrival. He flung the shuttle door open and offered his hand to help the passenger out.

"Hey there! I'm Tell, I'm the communications officer. You're…?"

The new arrival was confused. His name should have been provided to the crew of the _Mount Rainier_ well in advance. "I'm David Evans," he said.

"Right, right, but what's your _name_?"

"Oh. At the Academy, they called me Edge."

"Edge, welcome aboard." Tell looked a little young, but then again Communications and Recordkeeping weren't like Engineering; you could breeze through the program in twenty-four months. It was a program for kids who wanted to spend four years in college but only two of those studying.

"I'm afraid we're going to put you right to work," said Tell. "While you were enroute, we had a meteor impact. Outer hull breach, but nothing major. We patched it up with some temporary paneling. Your first assignment will be to get in there, re-route the ducts, and repair the four damaged cells."

"That's fine," said Edge. Tell was leading him down a seemingly interminable series of white corridors as they spoke, but he was confident that in time he'd learn his way around, just as he'd learned his way around many seemingly interminable white corridors at the Academy. In its construction and design, the freighter was unremarkable.

"We've got three drones to do the dirty work," said Tell. "You won't even have to put a suit on. But you'll need to program the hull maintenance into them, and then supervise their work. We've got Zephyr and Bob to do minor maintenance, but this isn't exactly a leaky sink, you know?"

"Perfectly understood."

"Here's your cabin. You can drop your stuff here, and if you're good to go, we'll pick up the drones and go take a look at the breach."

Edge dropped his duffel bag, containing all the personal possessions he would have for the next twelve months, on the floor, next to the bunk. He lingered for a moment, before he turned back for the door, to get a look at the dimensions and provisions of his cabin. It was the biggest room he'd lived in since he left home at seventeen to join the Academy. He calculated the height of the desk as the standard twenty-seven inches, which would make the room approximately eight feet wide, ten feet deep, and seven feet high. The desk, bunk, shelves, and the walls were all battleship grey. It was Edge's favorite color, by virtue of the fact that, being an engineer, if battleship grey was not his favorite color, he would go insane.

"I'm good to go," he said to Tell.

  


**2**

Edge was impressed by the three drones, specifically by their ability to interpret instructions. Sometimes he would give them a command by remote, and flinch when he realized he'd used an imprecise combination of words, but before he could correct himself, he'd see on the monitor that the task had been performed exactly as he had intended.

"Yeah, that's Bono's doing," said Tell, when Edge pointed this out to him. "He's been working with the drones, programming more sophisticated communication abilities into them, to eradicate Genie Syndrome."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Oh sorry, that's our term for it. Guess it hasn't caught on yet. It's like the joke about the guy who finds the genie in the lamp and it grants him two wishes. So the guy says, I want to be hard as a rock and get plenty of ass for the rest of my life. So the genie turned him into a commode."

"Who's Bono? Is he another engineer?"

Tell laughed. "Yeah, right. No, he's our botanist. Our other engineer was assigned to Earth duty quite abruptly; that's why we needed you on such short notice."

"Why did he have to leave…abruptly?"

Tell stopped and looked at Edge with much solemnity. "Space madness," he said.

Edge blinked. "I'd like to meet Bono."

"You say that now."

"What? Is he not friendly?"

Tell led the way to the Domes. "Oh, he's friendly."

Along the way, Edge noticed all sorts of maintenance issues that needed taking care of. A flickering bulb here, a mangled LED display there. Zephyr and Bob were not doing their jobs, it seemed. Although he had not yet met them, Edge had a picture in his mind already of Zephyr and Bob: two young men whose contact with authority in the last six months had been limited to occasional sub-space transmissions. Men who had grown lazy, having never had an internal motivation, and now none of the external variety. Edge thought men like that should not be allowed on these freighters, but then again a restriction like that might leave him alone in space.

"Now, listen," said Tell, "if you don't like this guy, don't worry. He spends almost all his time in the Domes. We hardly see him, except when he wants to pester us about our evil ways." He wiggled his fingers for effect, when he said those last two words.

Tell opened the door and Edge immediately felt the difference in the air. It was a little humid, and a few degrees cooler than the regulation twenty-three degrees Celsius.

"He's in here somewhere. Bono!" The shout disturbed some nearby birds, and they fluttered amongst the trees.

Tell and Edge were now standing on a path of metal grating, which led into a dense forest. Edge had never been in a forest; he had been born too late. He'd read about them in books, but all the trees he remembered reading about were described as leafy; the trees he saw now were laden with moss, or else had needles rather than leaves. Rough soil and bits of fern had snuck over the sides of the metal pathways. It looked messy. Tramping over this mess came Bono, clutching a furry brown rodent to his chest.

"Hi! Are you the new engineer? I'm Bono!"

His hair looked like he was in the process of growing it out. He had a smudge of dirt over his cheekbone, and his jumpsuit was unzipped to his sternum. The collar was crooked.

"I'm David Evans."

"His name's Edge," said Tell.

"Hi, Edge. Would you like to hold the bunny?"

Edge looked at the creature. It made no noise. "Is it a real rabbit?"

"Of course it's real. Here, pet its ears." Bono took a step closer, so Edge could touch the rabbit without him having to hold it out. Edge put a hand forward, gingerly, but the rabbit was not fazed.

"He likes you," Bono said.

"Right." Tell rolled his eyes. "I'll just leave you two alone. Edge, you've got control-room duty at nineteen-hundred."

Bono watched him go, over Edge's shoulder. "Don't worry about him," he said.

"Funny. He said the same thing about you."

"He's right. You don't need to worry about me. I'm harmless. Would you like to see more bunnies?" Without waiting for an answer, Bono turned on his heel and marched into the forest, off the metal pathway. Edge followed.

"This Dome is the Olympic Forest," Bono explained as they went. "Mostly coniferous."

"Coniferous meaning 'cone-bearing,'" Edge said as he stepped on a fallen cone. That was about the extent of his knowledge of both nature and dead languages.

"Each Dome on the _Mount Rainier_ has a different set of flora and fauna, the last remnants of the famous forests of the Pacific Northwest. This particular one is temperate rain forest. But, uh, listen." He stopped, and turned to speak to Edge as if in confidence. "Please don't tell the others that the Olympic Forest is my favorite."

"You mean Tell and Zephyr and Bob?"

"No, I mean the other forests. So far as they know, I love them all equally."

Birds flew freely about the Dome, and Edge caught sight of a squirrel or two, scampering up and down the tree trunks, but the rabbits were kept in pens, deep in the forest.

"We try to simulate a completely natural environment, but sometimes we have to sacrifice that in order to preserve balances. The bunnies have no natural predators in this Dome, except for the hawks. All the canids and big cats are kept in zoological preserves, because they're too dangerous. So if we let the bunnies here run loose, they'd breed out of control. The forest would be carpeted with them. So we keep the boys and girls in separate pens, and only let them breed occasionally."

Bono picked a bag up off the ground. "You caught me in the middle of Treats," he said, and stepped over the wire. Edge stayed outside until Bono invited him in.

They sat down on a log, and curious rabbits gathered around. Edge's conjecture was that they were drawn to Bono because they associated his presence with "Treats."

Bono showed Edge the proper way to hold a rabbit. He kept it close to his chest, with one hand under its hindquarters to support it. "Go ahead and pick that one up," he said, and nodded towards the rabbit that was sniffing Edge's boots.

"Are you sure they don't mind?"

"No, they don't mind. Bunnies like to be cuddled."

Edge picked up the rabbit and immediately decided he'd like never to put it down again. It was not just that it felt soft. Many fabrics were being manufactured these days that simulated soft fur. But this fur had an animal inside it. A living creature, warm, with a heartbeat. He felt the rabbit's pulse racing under his fingers.

Bono set his rabbit in his lap and reached for the bag. From it he pulled a head of lettuce. "Look what I have for you," he said. He spoke to the animals sweetly, as one would to children. Edge wondered if, having improved the communication skills of the drones, Bono's next task for himself was to teach the rabbits standard English. Bono pulled a leaf from the head of lettuce, then tore it in half. One half he put in his mouth, the other he shredded to feed the rabbits.

"Did you just eat that?" Edge said. "What is it?"

"Lettuce. You want some?"

"But you just fed some to the rabbit."

"Yeah. It's a vegetable. Mostly water, really." Bono held out a second leaf of lettuce, but Edge would not accept it.

"Suit yourself," he said, and put the leaf into his own mouth, then tore another for the rabbits.

"How long have you been on the _Mount Rainier_?" Edge asked.

"Mmm, about three years now. Basically since I graduated from the Academy."

"No one's on a freighter for three years."

Bono shrugged. "They let me keep re-upping. It's hard to find botanists. Botany is the Latin of the life sciences now."

Edge's rabbit squirmed in his hands, and he reluctantly put it on the ground. "How could anyone live in space for three whole years?"

"Are you kidding me? I couldn't ask for a better life. Maybe the living spaces are bland and cramped, but that's how everyone lives on Earth. Here, I can eat good fresh food, and breathe air that's been cleaned by trees, and the water is clean enough to swim in, and drink."

Edge nodded. Bono had a point, though he would be biased towards nature, being a botanist.

"There's really only one thing, that people have on Earth, that I don't have up here, that I wish I could."

"What's that?"

Bono only smiled. Edge figured out what Bono meant a few days later, when he was lying alone in bed.

  


**3**

The branches of the red cedars drooped low, as though the trees were growing upwards and downwards at the same time. Edge ducked under one of these hanging branches in the same spot that Bono had ducked under it, yet he managed to catch a spiderweb with his face that Bono had somehow missed. He grimaced and spat, clawing at the sticky fibers on his cheek, and promised himself at that moment that he would consider Bono's invitations more carefully, in the future.

Bono didn't seem to notice this. He trotted along, pointing out particular plants and reciting facts about each. As he went, he would occasionally reach out and pluck a colorful spheroid from some branch or other and put it in his mouth.

Under his feet, pine cones lay dismembered by birds and rodents. Edge picked one up and examined it. He poked at the sharp, broken bits.

Bono saw this and laughed. "Follow me. I'll show you some things that are much prettier to look at."

He led Edge through a cluster of Douglas firs. Edge noted the thick, cracked bark on their trunks, much different than the soft bark of the cedar, which one could peel off in strips. In amongst the firs was a glade bursting with blooms. The air was thick with pollen, and Edge could hear the buzzing of insects. Bono sat on the ground, invited Edge to join him, and then explained the attraction of the insects to the flowers.

"Bees used to get all the credit for pollination," he said. "But all kinds of bugs help flowers reproduce. Like these. These are bleeding-hearts."

Edge deduced that the flower got its name from its soft petals, which folded themselves into heart-shapes.

"They have these little seeds in them," Bono continued, "and the seeds excrete an oil. You or I couldn't smell it, but ants can smell it, and they like it. They pick the seeds up and carry them home. And some drop along the way, and that's how the flowers get spread out like this."

Edge studied an ant on the ground. It did not have a bleeding-heart seed; rather, it was attempting to capture and carry a tiny worm or grub of some kind. The worm struggled, often getting itself free, but the ant was powerful for it size, and persistent. Edge admired the ant.

All the while Bono continued talking about various kinds of flowers. He plucked a foxglove and held it in front of Edge to demonstrate how you could just slip your finger right inside the bell of its petals. He pressed blooms of all types upon Edge, urging him to inhale their fragrances. Bono was particularly fond of irises, and lilies-of-the-valley, which he claimed were the best-smelling of all flowers.

This wide variety of plants was frustrating for Edge to behold, because he felt compelled to study them all and get to know them, as he had previously memorized the minutiae of mechanical engineering. He saw himself trapped in this pungent garden for decades, unable to stop himself from cataloguing every leathery leaf and each tiny pod and spine, observing each green shoot emerging from the soil, testing the consistency of all the varieties of sticky resin.

Bono seemed to know exactly what he was thinking. "What's the matter, you don't think my indexing and cross-referencing will be good enough?"

Edge nodded solemnly. "Of course; your research should be more than sufficient. I'm sorry, it didn't occur to me that you would have a catalog. I just have had this feeling, like you're as new to this as I am. You're still so enthusiastic."

"Plants and trees are the only things worth being enthusiastic about!" said Bono. "You know, one day all this beauty and life will be put back on Earth. They're going to start re-foliating the planet any day now. I'm sure of it. I can't wait. The Earth will be beautiful again someday. And I'll want to live there again." He plucked absently at the soil. Speckles of light twinkled through the thick branches of the firs, and danced over him, over his face. Edge watched the pattern of the speckles sway as the branches swayed. Bono's thoughtful expression became one of sadness, as if he were only for the first time realizing that most people, including many powerful people, thought that the re-foliation project was a waste of time and money. There was a good chance that Bono would not live to see a tree planted on Earth, nor would anyone else.

When he finally moved, it was to lie on his belly amongst the bleeding-hearts. He had become entranced by the slow, purposeful journey of a snail. Edge joined Bono on the ground and watched the snail; the rolling undulations of its tiny foot, its curious antennae.

"I've heard of these. Snail, right? What do they do?"

"Eh, they basically just eat and reproduce. But that is where their similarity to humans ends. Did you know that a snail can drag fifty times its own weight?"

"That's interesting. How was that statistic determined?"

"I don't know. I guess it would be difficult to hitch a snail to a wagon, huh?"

Edge shifted. "Em, is there a lav in this Dome?"

Bono pointed vaguely. "You can just nip behind a tree."

"I beg your pardon."

Bono was still watching the snail. "It's okay, I won't peek."

"But wouldn't it be, I don't know, bad for the plants or something?"

Bono laughed. "Edge, where do you think the animals go?"

When Edge returned, Bono had gone. He went looking, and along the way he passed under a fir with one branch hanging low. Edge thought it looked sturdy, so he leaped to grasp it with both hands, and swung a little. He didn't know what compelled him to do this; a desire to impress Bono, maybe. But his gymnastics adventure was cut short when he felt a tiny, sharp pain in his palm. He tumbled back down to the ground, clutching one hand with the other.

"Ooh, did you get a splinter?" Bono appeared. Edge hadn't seen him, but he'd been watching Edge for a while. "Let's have a look."

Edge opened his hand like he was expecting blood to gush forth. He saw the shadow of the splinter, in the meaty part of his palm, under his pinky finger. With the thumb of his other hand he pressed where he thought the end of it ought to be, but the splinter emerged only a bit, and with it a bead of blood.

"Where's sick-bay, so I can get some tweezers?"

"No need for that," Bono said sweetly. "This happens all the time. I'll take care of it."

Without warning, Bono bent down and sealed his lips over Edge's wound. His tongue darted out, testing Edge's skin for the exposed tip of the culprit. Using his sensitive mouth, Bono had a much easier time feeling it out, slowly bringing his teeth together with the splinter between them, feeling now much larger than it had looked a moment ago. He drew the splinter out with great care, keeping Edge's hand still with both of his own.

"Oh God," Edge breathed when he felt the suction of Bono's lips on his skin.

Still holding the injured hand, Bono righted himself and spat out the offending object. In Edge's palm, another drop of blood was forming, and Bono returned to lick the tiny wound clean. Edge's heart leapt.

"There you go," Bono said triumphantly, and held Edge's open palm out to him for inspection. "Feel alright now?"

"Couldn't be better," Edge breathed. Which was not entirely true. He felt a new discomfort now, because what Bono had done had given him...well, it had stirred something. He wasn't really sure what was going on. Edge gestured to Bono to walk in front of him, and tried to think the awkward situation away.

"I want to show you my garden now," said Bono, and led Edge out the other side of the forest.

Edge decided he liked the garden best of all, because it was colorful but also well-planned and orderly.

"This is a strawberry plant," Bono said, indicating the first plant they encountered, at the corner of the garden. Edge leaned down and sniffed it.

Bono chuckled. "No, these ones don't really have a smell."

"Right." Edge blushed. "Okay. I'm sorry, I just feel like I don't know anything at all. I feel like I'm a baby, I'm just starting over and learning everything again."

Bono plucked a ripe strawberry and held it between two fingers. "You know how babies learn, right? They put things in their mouths." He pressed the tip of the strawberry against Edge's lips. "Go on," he said. "Take a bite."

Edge opened his mouth and let Bono push the strawberry past his lips. He bit down, and was assaulted by the tartness. He'd never known such an intensity of flavor. It was obvious that Bono was amused by Edge's expression. To him, the taste of a strawberry had become quite familiar, but Edge had only known bland wafers and supplements.

Edge devoured the rest of the strawberry, then two more, barely able to comprehend the moist sweetness. He snatched up a fourth, but Bono stopped him. "You'll be ill if you have too many, mate. I learned that the hard way."

Edge's eyes widened. "Are they bad for you?"

"No, no, but your body doesn't know how to process real food. It's used to those Styrofoam squares you eat. But don't worry. Eventually you'll eat this stuff all the time, just like me."

Edge looked at the strawberries longingly. He wanted another one.

"You know what I really miss," Bono said, "is bananas. I got to go on board the _Rio_ , the freighter with the tropical forests, and it had bananas. My favorite, no contest. But they don't grow on the _Rainier_."

"What are bananas like?"

"Hmm, well, they're shaped like…well, they're yellow." Bono smirked, but Edge didn't understand what was funny. "I've got an idea," Bono said. "Let's have a picnic next week!"

"What's a picnic?"

"That's where you have lunch outside. With real food. No one on Earth has bothered to do it in a hundred years, because the outside's the same as the inside now. Tell you what. You come by and have a bit of food from my garden every day, and I think by next week you can have as much as you like, and not be ill. Do you promise to come here every day?"

"I promise," said Edge. His tongue slid around in his mouth, savoring the last remnants of the taste of strawberries.

  
**4**

Tell had promised Edge that Bono almost never left the Domes, and yet it seemed that no matter where Edge was on the freighter, Bono would pop up, express amazement at the coincidence, and take the opportunity to immediately begin chattering. That had been the way of things since he'd arrived. Today Edge wandered into the Dome, immediately tense, expecting that at any moment Bono would leap out to greet him.

But it didn't happen that way. Edge strolled along the grated metal pathway, near the door, waiting; then he grew impatient, and ventured into the forest. He didn't know his way around, but he trusted Bono would find him.

 _Splash_. Edge heard it, though he could not see any water from where he was. He followed the sound, doing his best not to trample any plants. Another splash helped him find his way.

On Edge's side, the pool was lined with tall rushes. He found the soil under his feet to be spongier. Peering through the rushes, he saw a pile of clothes on the opposite, mossy bank.

Suddenly Bono came tearing through the surface of the water. He shook his head back and forth, to get the wet hair out of his eyes. For a while he floated leisurely on his back, and Edge could see that he was quite naked. Then he dove again and disappeared. Edge was impressed by Bono's skill in the water.

When Bono reappeared at the surface, it was near the shore. He hauled himself out of the water and onto the mossy bank. It was only then that Edge truly realized who he was watching, and that what he was seeing was none of his business.

And yet, though he considered himself a moral person, he could not come up with a good enough reason why he should get up and leave. Uncertain of how well-concealed he might be, he crouched behind the rushes, trying to appear green and stalk-like.

As Bono walked toward his pile of clothes, Edge got a good look at his body. He did not have a particularly athletic form, nor was he slender or graceful, but Edge noted that all of Bono's various parts combined in a way that made some aesthetic sense. Sturdy shoulders, a short torso, a shapely behind. At this last observation, Edge caught himself. That was rude to notice, he thought.

Bono did not hurry to clothe himself, but rather found a towel, crumpled up on top of his jumpsuit. He dried his face, and nothing else. Looking about, he found a spot to lay the towel down, and then reclined on it. All around him were tiny purple flowers, and he picked one or two, toying with the petals, as he lay on his side, his body still shining and wet. Eventually he rolled onto his back, one hand on his chest, the other at his side, still pinching a little flower. When he raised one knee, his soft cock was gently nudged, and it settled on the other thigh. He heaved a great sigh, then did not move for many long minutes. Edge thought perhaps he was napping. It seemed now would be a good time to beat a hasty retreat. But Edge convinced himself to stay a moment longer, to be sure that Bono would not notice any suspicious movement behind the rushes.

Just as Edge tensed his thigh muscles to get himself upright, Bono moved. He tossed the little flower into the pond and watched it float away. His other hand began stroking his chest, caressing in lazy circles. He seemed in no hurry to do anything more. Occasionally his head would tilt to one side or the other, as though he were considering something.

Just when Edge was beginning to think he was coming to grips with what he was seeing, Bono's other hand came up to rest on his belly, then to travel along one thigh. Those two hands moved in concert, softly stroking every body part they could reasonably reach. Where Bono's skin was still damp, they skittered along; where it had dried, they stroked smoothly. But in all this motion there was one thing he did not touch: his cock, which was now beginning to stand up.

He looked so natural there, lying among the flowers and ferns, clean and naked, enjoying his own body. Edge was no stranger to self-pleasuring, but he never bothered with the idea that person could use their whole body to make themselves feel good. Now, Edge watched Bono's hips as they rolled, his back as it arched, and all this without touching the only part Edge had even bothered with himself, when he was alone.

When Bono finally touched it, it jumped, and as he gripped it, it continued to twitch. With his other hand he played with his nipples for a while, then reached down to rub and cup his balls. Now he was getting into territory that Edge was more familiar with, and his mind slid all the way to the other end of the Curiosity-Arousal continuum. He knew better than to try to take out his own cock, but he rubbed it through the fabric of his jumpsuit, faster and more roughly than Bono was touching his own. Bono seemed to be quite cheerful about his pastime, going about it while humming tunelessly, listening to the birds chirping, and maybe also thinking about the little frogs and newts nearby, and the fish in the water.

Without warning, Bono's hips wriggled and a thick strand of come shot out onto his belly. Only then did he make a lot of noise, a great cry of relief, as he milked himself over his belly. He hummed and cooed, and Edge had to take his hand off himself, lest he be overtaken by pleasure and give himself away.

Bono gave his hand one long swipe with his tongue, and Edge was shocked a moment later, when he realized he _hadn't_ come at the sight of that. Rolling over onto his knees, Bono dipped his hands in the water to wash them. He splashed some onto his belly, and this time dried himself properly with his towel. When he got dressed, it was as though nothing remarkable had just happened, and he wandered off, away from Edge, into the forest.

As soon as he had the chance, Edge was bathing too, but it was in his shower cubicle, under bright artificial light. He tried to do some of the things to himself that he'd seen Bono doing, but it just wasn't the same.

  


**5**

To his horror, Edge found himself turning into one of _those_ people. One of those shiftless layabouts with no internal motivation to see a job done well. He'd tidied up the ship good and proper, even down to replacing the light bulbs in the storage closets, and sealing ducts which lay dormant for now but which might see some use in the future. But he didn't like to think about ducts and wiring anymore, which bothered him, because he used to always like thinking about ducts and wiring. He no longer cared to labor inside this humming mechanical beast. And he started malingering. Once he learned the routines well enough, he shaved off a few minutes here and there, where he thought he could get away with it, to steal away to the Domes. When he was familiar enough with the equipment to know which machines required constant maintenance (like the drones), and which ran self-sufficiently for days at a time, he shortened his daily check-ups. He double-checked things, instead of triple-checking them. And he was ashamed about this behavior, but not enough to curb it.

A blanket was spread on the ground, and Edge found Bono seated upon it, accompanied by a basket full of odd shapes and colors, and no plates or bowls at all. In one hand he held something, half of a sphere. The outside looked rough, like a stone, perhaps. The inside was pale orange, and he was scooping it out with a spoon and devouring it.

"I started without you," Bono confessed.

"What is that you're eating?" Edge knelt down timidly, as though he feared the mercurial botanist might have changed his mind about wanting company.

"It's a cantaloupe." Bono held it out, and the spoon. "You want some?"

"What's a cantaloupe?"

"It's a melon. Melons are very convenient, because they're the food and the bowl." He proffered it again. "Have some. I'm serious."

Edge accepted the bowl - er, the food - and dug the spoon into the orange flesh. It made a crunching, squishing sound. As he lifted the spoon to his mouth, he looked Bono straight in the eye. He did this because he was imitating an old film he saw once, where an Arab in the desert offered an Englishman some of his Bedouin food, and the Englishman stared right at the Arab, stone-faced, while he ate a bite, sort of to make a point that he was not afraid of the strange food or the Arab.

Of course, these days the Arabs ate nutrition wafers, too.

"When you look at me like that," Bono said with a tilt of his head, "I feel like I haven't got any clothes on."

Edge blinked. The Arab had not said anything like that to the Englishman, in the film. He thought of the other day, by the stream, and cursed himself silently for his indiscretion.

"But not that way," Bono continued. "More like, you're a doctor, and I'm on the examination table."

"I am a doctor," Edge said. But he understood what Bono meant. Sort of.

He relaxed, thinking that he'd gotten away with spying after all.

Edge had been coming to the forest daily, having a little something from Bono's garden each time, and so now Bono felt it safe to press upon him every variety of food grown in the Domes, even some things that he described as "contraband;" fruits and vegetables not native to the Pacific Northwest, that he was not supposed to grow.

"Everything I grow is delicious. After today, you'll never be satisfied by wafers again." He gave Edge a handful of fat red berries, so ripe they threatened to burst from their skin.

Eating real food was a noisy business. As Edge chewed, he heard the sounds in his head, alternately crunchy, sticky, and moist. Bono made comparable noises of relish. Whenever he caught Edge looking at him he smiled as he chewed, which Edge found endearing. Everything that Bono did that was endearing, was also odd.

But about half the time, Bono's smile changed, in a way that could be interpreted as lascivious, and Edge became embarrassed and averted his eyes, just slightly. Instead, he would examine Bono's jaw, which worked rhythmically as he chewed, or a little further down, to watch the undulations of his throat as he swallowed. But then, how could one examine these things and not have one's eye drawn downwards just a little more, to the patch of dark chest hair visible in a V-shape where the zipper of his jumpsuit was undone.

When Edge's eyes completed this path, made a circuit back up to Bono's face, he found Bono still gazing back at him; he had seen where Edge had been looking. He still smiled warmly, and cast his gaze downwards at himself in two quick darts, to encourage Edge to keep ogling.

The artificial sunlight glinted off the zipper, which Bono knew perfectly well was already pulled an inch or two lower than it should have been. Edge was suddenly fascinated by this little sparkling piece of metal. He wanted to take it between thumb and forefinger and pull it down some more. He also wanted Bono to say something, because he couldn't.

"Edge? Is there something going on that I can help you with?"

Edge nodded mutely, his mouth slightly open. Bono took Edge's hand, and guided it to the zipper-pull.

"Go on, then," he said.

Tiny metal teeth clicked as they disengaged one by one, and Edge got the zipper-pull down to Bono's belly before stopping. He wanted to put his hand on Bono's chest before he went any further, to feel his heartbeat, which was accelerating. Then he remembered that he had two hands, and so one could caress the whorls of dark hair over Bono's breastbone while the other could unzip him further. But even then, he was afraid to pull the zipper down all the way.

Bono helped Edge by pulling his arms out of the sleeves. "So what do you want to do?" he asked. He leaned closer, and Bono could smell his musk. Bono did not bother with the deodorant compound soap that was favored by nearly all Earthlings, and it was only now that Edge realized how dark and masculine a human being could smell. For a moment there, he had been hesitant to proceed with the removal of Bono's clothing, but after the smell of him filled Edge's nostrils, he felt it couldn't happen fast enough.

Bono shucked his boots and then got on his knees, tilting his pelvis toward Edge. His hands were at the zipper. A few hairs here and there strayed over the borders made by the little metal teeth. Edge watched as more dark curls were revealed. And then suddenly, there was Bono's cock, ruddy and fully hard, springing from beneath the fabric. Bono gasped to feel it freed, to feel the cool air on it. He held it in his hand, presenting it to Edge.

Keeping his eyes fixed on the sight before him, Edge went for his own zipper. He forgot his boots until his jumpsuit was around his knees. A calm, smug Bono helped him, finished undressing himself, and then there they were, naked in front of one another.

Edge wasn't interested in his own body, only in Bono's. His own body was familiar and boring; Bono's was new and exciting. Edge wished to touch every part of it, but he was fixed particularly on those parts most thickly covered in, or surrounded by, that dark fur.

Untouched by shame or anxiety, Bono sat with his legs splayed; it amused him to display himself to Edge, who was sitting on his heels, hunched over himself, staring. "Come and sit with me," he said. "Sit like I am."

Edge got one leg out from under him, then the other. His palms were flat against the ground; they were sweating, sticking to the blanket beneath.

"You're way over there," Bono said, and scooted himself closer. Much closer, in fact. He sat between Edge's ankles and hooked his legs over Edge's knees, so they formed a symmetrical, seated embrace. He helped Edge pick up where he left off, by placing one of Edge's hands over his heart. Then, he moved the hand so the palm covered a nipple, which was standing up in the cool air. There seemed to be something stuck in Edge's throat, for he would move his lips but was unable to make sounds. The musk rose from Bono's body, and now that he was so near, with his legs spread, Edge could detect something warmer and more intense. The scent was awakening a long-suppressed instrument of sexual attraction. The desire in him was no longer a nebulous curiosity. His hind-brain seemed to have just found a voice. It was telling him that some convergence of mucous membranes must take place. So Edge kissed Bono with an open mouth, which was a bit silly and awkward until a second later, when Bono opened his mouth as well.

Then Bono's hands were on him, and his mind remained only close enough that he thought he heard moaning, and whispering, though he couldn't discern who was doing which. Bono touched Edge's cock with just his fingertips, gently sliding the foreskin up and down over the head, hiding it and revealing it, over and over. "From now on," he said softly as he caressed, "every time I touch the petals of a flower, I'm going to think of how much it feels like this."

Edge closed his eyes and thought of the coy peonies in Bono's garden, the moist dew on their petals. He leaned forward to bury his face in Bono's neck, unable to stop the noises he was making, and then unable to stop the sparks he saw behind his eyelids. When he opened his eyes, Bono was studying with a critical eye the few drops of clear fluid that had trickled down his fingers. "Well, now, that's pitiful," he said. "It's because you've eaten hardly anything but those nutrition wafers all your life. No wonder they've had to set up so many fertilization clinics on Earth. Here, I'm going to show you what it's supposed to look like." With that, Bono leaned back, supporting himself with one arm behind him while he pleasured himself with the other.

"But," Edge said. "Let me."

"No." Bono continued stroking his cock, and looked into Edge's eyes. "I knew you were watching me, the other day at the pond. I heard you."

"Oh God, I'm sorry. I just…"

"It's fine. It was exciting. I liked being watched. By you. I want you to do it again. Here, don't look in my eyes. Look at what my hand is doing. I want to watch you watching me. Look down at my hand. Ooh, I'm really close."

When Bono came, he produced two thick, white jets of come, which landed on his thigh. A third pulsed out and down his fingers as he groaned and gave his cock one last squeeze, before it became too sensitive.

Edge put his hands to his face, embarrassed by Bono's exhibitionism, and his own willing participation in it. "Yeah," he whispered. "Mine's never been like that."

Bono leaned forward, and used the edge of the blanket to clean himself up a bit. "You keep eating real food and it will get better."

"Um, do you know what time it is? I've got control-room duty tonight, and…"

"You can stay just a minute longer."

Edge didn't know why hearing those words made him blush, after all that had already happened. "Maybe just a minute. But I really need to get dressed."

Once Edge got his jumpsuit on, Bono stepped up so he could zip it up for him. "I'm glad we had a picnic," he said.

Edge nodded. "Yeah, me too." And he felt stupid for only being able to think of that much to say.

  


**6**

In the dream, the wind was blowing. Everything swayed back and forth, and a hundred thousand leaves rustling became a single roar. Even Bono was swaying, and Edge felt himself swaying too.

When he woke up, the room was humming. The climate control had switched on. Edge flung back his sheet and got up out of his bunk. He did not know what time it was. The week before, he had turned his clock to face the wall because he'd had it with seeing its glowing numbers fifteen times a night, whenever he woke from a fitful sleep.

He stood still in the middle of the cabin. He was no longer swaying.

"I am in control of this situation," he said to himself. And then he repeated, "I am in control of this situation."

There was a tiny green glow where the clock face didn't quite touch the wall. The glow was not powerful enough to illuminate the room. Edge stood there until his eyes adjusted enough to see the shape of his desk, his bed.

"I am a scientist," he whispered to himself. "Everything I have ever done, in my entire life, has been weighed, measured, and observed objectively. What I am about to do is not impulsive."

Edge left his cabin and walked twenty-three meters down the corridor, to Bono's room.

The door of Bono's room was not locked. When Edge pushed the button, the door slid open, and in the brief time before it closed behind him, while the light shone in, Edge observed the room, noted where the bunk was and what obstacles lay on the floor between it and him. Bono was not tidy, but once the door slid shut and the room was dark again, Edge knew to take three short steps forward, one step to the left, pivot ninety degrees, and one more step forward. The fabric of his pajama-bottoms brushed the frame of the bunk. "See?" he said. "Perfect. Perfectly rational state of mind."

"Who are you talking to?" said Bono.

Edge lifted the blankets, more layers than he was expecting, and climbed into the bunk, where Bono lay on his side, facing the wall. He shifted forward until his chest came in contact with Bono's shoulder blade. Bono did not move. Edge sensed no tension in his body. There was no glowing clock in the room, not even one facing the wall. Bono did not care enough about time to have one.

Edge slid one hand down bare flesh, until he touched the fabric of Bono's pajama bottoms. He tugged at them. "I'm going to take these off you," he whispered.

Bono muttered something. Edge expected him to roll onto his back, to facilitate the endeavor, but instead he turned onto his belly. Edge did not know how to read this. He got himself over Bono, straddling his thighs, and Bono lifted his hips, so the pajamas would slide right off.

"Why do you bother with all these blankets? Why not just adjust the climate control in here?"

Bono turned his head. If the lights had been on, Edge could have at least seen half of his self-deprecating expression. "When I was a kid," he began, "sheets annoyed me."

"Sheets annoyed you."

"My mother would get so angry if I didn't sleep under a sheet. I didn't understand then, that the purpose of a sheet is to stay between you and the blankets, so you don't have to wash the blankets as often. All I knew was, the sheets were coarse and itchy, and the blankets were soft. And colorful. So anyway, when I grew up and left for the Academy, I just ignored the sheets that I was issued. Washing the blankets all the time is more trouble, but it's worth it because the blankets feel so good on your skin when you're naked."

Bono wiggled as a way of signaling to Edge to get off of him, so he could reach the lamp. Edge recoiled prematurely from the brightness, but when Bono switched the light on, it produced the softest of illumination, just enough for Edge to see the enticing contours of Bono's body. "I usually sleep naked," Bono said, "But I knew you would come into my room, and I wanted you to take them off me."

"How did you know I would come to you?"

Bono grinned. "You told me."

"No I didn't."

"Oh, yes you did."

Edge broke eye contact and slowly laid down alongside Bono, propping himself on one elbow. He wasn't sure how he felt about that, another person being able to predict his behavior. "Well then, what am I telling you right now?"

"You're telling me," Bono said, rolling languidly onto his back and clasping his hands behind his head, "that you're going to come into my room every night from now on."

Edge's gaze slid over Bono's body. The dim lamplight displayed the softness and fragility of the human form, so different from the hard, slick bodies composited in films. Edge appreciated seeing how the body did not need any special treatment to be titillating. He thought about how his own un-retouched body might be exciting for Bono to look at.

"I wanted to ask you a question. Has it been your observation…I mean, when a person eats fruits and vegetables and gets to walk around in the forest and go swimming…Should that person tend to feel more like…em…like they want to…"

"Shag like there's no tomorrow? You have _no_ idea." Bono put his hands on his own body. "Doesn't it feel great? Like, this wave of energy is just emanating from you, all the time."

"Yeah," Edge whispered, not sure if that's how he would have articulated the feeling.

"You know, Edge, people on Earth, they're all asleep. They take pills when they want to feel things, then they take more pills to stop it when they don't like the things they're feeling. And I was that way too, until I got here, and it was like, I was suddenly awake. I wasn't in that dream anymore. And I felt cheated, because it wasn't even my own dream! It was someone else's dream." Bono turned to look at Edge. "Don't you feel like a different person? Like, part of you is still there, but you've been…upgraded?"

"Oh, don't be so _scientific_." Edge cracked himself up, to hear himself say that. When laughed, the feeling inside him grew even stronger.

"So?" Bono said, when Edge had quieted down. "What do you want to do about it?"

"I guess…I want to shag like there's no tomorrow."

"Fantastic."

Bono rolled so that he was facing Edge properly, and tilted his head before going in for the first kiss. When he put his arm around Edge, Edge wished to do the same, but now his own arm was trapped. He managed, at least, to move his hand to Bono's hip. As they kissed, their bodies tilted, as one, back and forth. Each of them in turn seemed about to move to mount the other, but then leaned back, invitingly, and soon the other looked as though he might lie on top. This went on for several minutes, until Edge disengaged just enough to say, "I know I'm the one who came in here and got you naked and everything, but I don't know what to do next."

Bono giggled, intending to break the tension, but his laughter only made Edge more anxious. Edge was being serious; he was confused about this feeling, this congestion inside him, a need for release, and he didn't know what to do about it. That is to say, he knew, mechanically, what was done, and he and Bono had already made practical use of these mechanics. But for once in his life he had to admit that simply knowing how the components interacted was completely useless information to him, right now. It was easy for Bono to laugh; he seemed to have everything figured out.

Bono caught on that his giggling was not appreciated. He put on his serious face and asked, "What do you feel like doing?"

"I'm not sure. I was expecting you to be in charge, like you always are."

Bono couldn't hold his sober expression. "Yes, that's me. I'm Bono, and I'm in charge of the lovemaking on this ship! Alright then, if you insist." He hoisted himself up and over Edge's trembling body, and made short work of stripping Edge of his pajama bottoms. Edge felt silly for keeping them on for that long. Bono discarded them with a flourish, and then planted one knee on either side of Edge. He leaned in close, shifting until he found a comfortable way to distribute his weight without crushing him. "How about this?" he whispered. "Do you like the way this feels?"

Edge could hardly say no. His aching erection was now pressed firmly on all sides by warm flesh, some of it soft, some of it hard, some of it smooth, some of it fuzzy. When Bono shifted his weight once more, rubbing all that flesh more firmly and damply together, Edge let out a noisy breath, a sharp sigh, and Bono whispered, "Yes, you like the way this feels." He tried a little more of that, rocking side to side, before taking up a proper up-and-down rhythm, which, he hoped, would pull Edge's foreskin back and forth over the crown of his erection, the way his own was being rubbed. If worse came to worst, Bono thought with a smirk, they could use their hands, although he appreciated what Edge was doing with his hands at the moment: making long exploratory strokes up and down and all across Bono's body, wherever he could reach.

For his part, Edge was just trying to figure out what was going on. He was new to this business, and wanted to comprehend it, to catalog it, to tame it, but Bono was doing such a good job of making him feel good, he couldn't think straight. He was being distracted by his attempts to understand why it felt good, how it felt good. (It was important to do this, since as a scientist, his instinct when investigating a new and problematic situation was to deduce how to reproduce results.)

He had been able to get past his first impression of Bono, which was that he was very odd, but was stuck on his second impression, which was that Bono was earthy and masculine, and he was trying to get Edge to be earthy and masculine, too. And those were two words that Edge would not previously have used to describe himself.

And yet here he was now, flexing his muscles, sliding his sweat-slick skin against another man's sweat-slick skin. Between the two of them, there were two hard cocks, two hairy chests, two voices grunting and growling. With one hand Edge reached, threw aside the blanket Bono had covered them with, and looked down the length of their bodies, watching Bono's thigh straining as he pushed their flesh together. He wished for them both to come, just then; he wanted to feel those two cocks pulsing against his belly, the sticky mess of sweat and semen between their bodies. He pictured it in his mind, two thick, healthy jets of come. And that's when he realized why it felt so good. He had lost control entirely.

Edge wasn't sure that they both went at the same time. He just sort of left his body, heard himself cry out as if from a great distance, and when he returned, Bono was still moving, just a little, and gazing intently at Edge's face.

"Did you finish?" Edge whispered.

"For now," Bono said, and gave Edge a kiss of gratitude, on the neck.

  


**7**

Every day, the artificial sunlight in the Domes seemed less artificial to Edge, because for six months now there had been no real sunlight to compare it to. The light seemed as real as the thrushes chirping in the trees, as real as the fragrances of the irises and lilies.

He carried a cedar sapling, and marched behind Bono, deferring to him as always in these matters. Bono led them deep into the forest, until they found what he considered a suitable clearing. Trowel in hand, he stopped and knelt down, brushing aside the thick layer of moss and dead leaves to expose the soil underneath. Once Edge was kneeling beside him, he drove the trowel into the ground, scooping out dark, loamy earth. A startled earthworm squirmed at the edge of the trowel, half in and half out of the soil. Bono gently dropped the scoop, worm and all, alongside the divot he'd made, and went in for another.

Edge suddenly became jealous of Bono for being the one who got to dig the hole. This feeling was merely an expression of an urge as old as the human race, but which his generation had no opportunity to indulge: the desire of a child to play in the dirt.

Whether Bono's judgment that the hole was a sufficient size was scientific or intuitive, Edge did not know. Bono just stopped digging and gestured to Edge to place the sapling in the hole. Edge handled the sapling as though it were a crystal figurine, although he was not sure why. Young trees had to be quite resilient, if they were to grow into old trees. Perhaps Edge's care was more a matter of reverence than perceived fragility: what he was doing was nowadays a rare and precious thing, more rare and precious than any crystal, and such a ritual demanded deliberate care. He cupped the sapling in both hands, lowering it until his knuckles touched the soil at the bottom of the hole, then released it. He scooped the dirt into the remaining gaps around the sapling's roots, and all the while Bono whispered barely audible encouragements, a word here and there under his breath. Both of them patted down the dirt with their spread fingers, as though reluctant to let the little tree go.

"This tree will be around long after we're gone," Bono said. "I hope."

As Edge lifted his hands away from the earth, Bono grasped one and put it to his mouth, kissing the dirty palm. He then gripped Edge's wrist hard, and with one smooth motion of his other hand produced a needle and punctured Edge's middle finger.

Edge yelped and tried to retake possession of his hand, but Bono held him fast. "What the hell did you do that for, you crazy bastard?" he cried. But before he'd managed to even finish the sentence, Bono held Edge's hand over the sapling, and squeezed a drop of blood from the finger into the soil. He let Edge go, and just as swiftly jabbed himself with the needle. Edge watched the warm red fluid leave Bono's body and drip into the soil, more copiously than his own had done.

"Now this tree is ours," Bono said proudly. "We fed it."

Edge closed his eyes, unable to keep from smiling. "You crazy bastard," he repeated.


End file.
